Adriana Cora

Beauty is not the subject of Adriana Cora’s mixed media canvases, but rather the raw material from which they are created, tweaked and repeated in layers across multiple works. The basic units of her compositions are nude female figures and images of roses, set against color fields of red, white or black. In places the flowers engulf the image, covering every area and corner with petals and stems. Cora conveys an almost Warholian delight in repetition and process, testing different combinations of flower patterns, color schemes and models, to delightful effect.

A self-taught artist from Buenos Aires, Cora uses very contemporary techniques to create juxtapositions of media, form and color that have an almost gothic quality to them. Swathed in lush textures, deep reds and layers of roses, each work is rich with tactile information. Eventually, the roses and nude figures become pictorial elements rather than figurative subjects, combinations of lines and forms that stand in stark contrast to one another. Cora almost overwhelms us with beauty, and then asks us to look deeper.